Made By Smree

  First of all - Happy Earth Day!  Secondly, as a brief aside, let me say that this post was not sponsored in any way.  I just personally like the products included here and wanted to share them.  That is all!  As I said, today is Earth Day, which is basically a day set aside to bring attention to the environmental movement, or “to diversify, educate, and activate the environmental movement worldwide”, according to EarthDay.org . I do not in any manner profess to be the leading authority on the environmental movement, but I have made the conscious decision to try to be less wasteful, and to make some small changes in order to do what I can for the planet we call home.  Do I still use single-use plastics, and generate more trash that I probably should?  The answer is yes.  But - doing something is better than doing nothing, and my point here is that even small changes can help. The first change I made was to use less disposable plastic bottles.  I drink a lot of water over the course o

  Recently, as part of the re-launch of the K-Friends program sponsored by the Korea Tourism Organization, individuals were asked to “Find your favorite Korea”, which meant to find something related to Korea in your city, or nearby.  Since I live in the Southern US, this seemed a daunting task, but ended up being a fun experience overall!  A nearby restaurant serves what they call ‘Asian fusion’ cuisine, which includes a dish called kimchi fries. Kimchi is a traditional Korean food and is considered a staple part of a Korean diet.  According to VisitKorea.or , it’s served with every meal in Korea. It typically consists of spiced and fermented Napa cabbage or radish, but can be made with other vegetables too. The kimchi fries dish consisted of stir-fried kimchi, bulgogi beef, cheese, mild Korean sauce, sour cream, scallions and sesame seeds, served over crispy french fries.   Prior to this, I had never tried kimchi or bulgogi beef, but they are truly delicious !  The kimchi was slightl

Memories of Prophecies by Davis Ashura My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was given the opportunity to read an ARC of this book, for which I am eternally grateful. Before we delve into my thoughts - Dear Mr. Ashura, you had better be working on the next book because I'm going to need it immediately, please and thank you. Now, for the book itself. What I adored about 'A Testament of Steel' was that it started off with a bang and kept going. This book was no different. The story picks up right where the first book left off, following our hero, Cinder, in his second year at the Third Directorate, and honestly, the story just never slows down. But in a really, really good way. Trust me. There is so much action in this book! AND all of the action is incredibly well written, to the point that I found myself audibly, literally gasping in response to what was happening on more than one occasion. (I MIGHT have screeched a few times as well while reading bu

I’m going to let y’all in on a secret. I love coffee . Okay, so it’s probably not THAT big of a secret, but I have seemingly developed what is probably an unhealthy obsession with coffee.  And I’m not particularly picky when it comes to type, either.  I love iced coffee, regular freshly brewed hot coffee, cold brews, lattes, flavored coffee... Told you it was an obsession. And this has been a great week for coffee lovers, what with National Coffee Day on September 29th, and International Coffee Day, which is today! While I did celebrate both days by enjoying my favorites, today I wanted to share a new coffee confection I recently experimented with.  Awhile back, I saw a video posted by some YouTubers in Japan about coffee jelly.  Apparently it is (or was, since this was some time back) a big thing overseas, and when I first saw the video and recipe, I was intrigued.  I thought I might try making it ‘one day’.   Fast forward a bit to more recently, and my finally getting around to watc

Since January of 2018, I have lost a little over 70lbs.  I probably would have lost a lot more by now, if I did not have a serious addiction to sweets, tacos and french fries.  And I’d probably lose more if I actually exercised more regularly, too, but that’s not the point of this post.  Actually that will probably come up in a later post, but I digress.  Back to the main topic.  Obviously, due to my weight loss, people have noticed a difference in my appearance, and have asked a lot of questions regarding my self-improvement journey.  One question has come up repeatedly, and it’s one I felt warranted a more in-depth discourse here.  “What’s your secret??” Let me address right away that there is no ‘big secret’ to weight loss.  There is no magic pill, no ultimate diet plan, or a dummy proof guide.  My ‘secret’ (if you can call it that, even) is fairly simple.  You have to want it, and you have to find what works for you .  Then, you have to stick with it.  Motivation, a plan, and commi

How's quarantine and/or social distancing going, friends?  I've been spending more time at home, which has been good for my bank account (except for that whole online shopping thing).  I've spent them majority of my time reading, crocheting, catching up on my extensive Netflix list, and spending inordinate amounts of time on my Animal Crossing island.  That game is seriously addicting. One other thing I've done during my time at home is to make what my family has dubbed 'abomination cookies'.  These are essentially two/three ingredient cookies, with one of the ingredients being bananas, which my younger brother hates , hence the moniker 'abomination cookies', since he often refers to bananas as abominations.   However, these cookies are delicious  and I've made probably six batches of them so far.  We had a couple bananas that were overripe, and so I typed "what to do with overripe bananas" into Google, and this recipe  came up.   It consis

I have read several books by Davis Ashura (as evidenced by prior reviews!), and am beyond pleased to post an advance review for an upcoming release, A Testament of Steel , which is currently available for pre-order. In the efforts of full disclosure :  I was sent an ARC (advanced reader copy) of this book in exchange for an honest review.  I am also going to attempt to make this review as spoiler free as I can, but it’s going to be tough.  But I’ll do my best.   As I’ve read many of Mr. Ashura’s works so far, I went into this one expecting much of the same.  While Ashura’s books are incredible in terms of world building and developing engaging stories and characters you become truly invested in, my one small complaint is that sometimes his works are a ‘slow burn’.  While he pulls this off well (as I’ve said in previous reviews), it does make it a bit harder in the beginning to keep focus.   This book, however, was NOTHING like that.  From the start, and I mean literally